Agri boss Cathy McGowan calls for new approach to measure value in the bush

AgriFutures chair Cathy McGowan reckons the calculation that farming creates about 2.7 per cent of GDP radically understates the value of the sector to the national balance sheet.

Cathy McGowan: ’Agriculture is so much more than production.’ Picture: AAP

Cathy MGowan is on a mission to reposition Australia agriculture and bury the assumptions that it’s all about production.

The chair of AgriFutures and former Independent federal MP reckons the current calculation that farming creates about 2.7 per cent of GDP radically understates the value of the sector to the national balance sheet.

Ahead of the annual Rural Women’s Awards dinner in Canberra on Tuesday, Ms McGowan said: “Agriculture is so much more than production.

“We’ve been defined by production but when you add in all the service industries, the supply chain, related infrastructure work, education … If you put in vets and the thoroughbred industry … it’s so much more. They talk about inside the farm gate and outside the farm gate. Basically, the GDP refers to what’s inside the farm gate, and it only shows part of it and it doesn’t have anything to do with the truckies, the stock and station agent, for example.”

Ms McGowan said the transition to net zero offered enormous opportunity for the regions in terms of growth but there was a need for a national roadmap to guide local, state and federal governments in the implementation and co-ordination of renewable energy infrastructure.

A recent AgriFutures report had recommended a roadmap to sort out how the rollout of infrastructure, like transmission lines, would work.

“Our research showed that there are significant barriers to the uptake of renewables on farmland,” she said “It’s a topic of real importance, and there’s diversity of opinion, but if we can manage the transition fairly, there’s enormous opportunity for rural and regional Australia.”

Ms McGowan said AgriFutures was in discussion with DAFF (the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) about a “growth industry” approach to measuring agricultural GDP, but she recognised there was more work to be done.

She will tell the Tuesday dinner, which will be attended by the Prime Minister, that we need to unlock the full potential of agriculture by acknowledging it drives jobs in communications, transport, education, and the full supply chain.

She argues jobs in agriculture are not confined to regional Australia but can sit anywhere, spread across many sectors that support food production, and based remotely in cities. There were already large numbers of people working in city offices who were employees of rural operations, and this would increase with technology, she said.

“Not all the agricultural jobs are in the bush, lots of them – the drones, the engineering, the chemical stuff, the selling, the marketing, the communications – all that happens in the cities,” she said. “You’ve got these big Canadian superannuation trusts that have bought up big swathes of land and most have four or five people working behind the farm gate, but most everybody else is working in offices.”

The AgriFutures dinner will honour state winners of the Rural Women’s Awards as well as announce the overall winner. Ms McGowan says the awards are special because they celebrate women who work on projects or in businesses that are truly beyond the farm gate, for example in education and health.